February 2018 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

Capricon 2018

I’ve attended some large conventions – Origins, DragonCon, GenCon – and they’re certainly fun, but when it comes down to it, the smaller conventions, like Capricon, are my favorites. While the large conventions focus more on seeing the big names and meeting many of your fan favorites, the little conventions are about interacting with other geeks and getting to know them. And because geeks are such a diverse mix, there are many different ways of doing that at a convention. For example, here are some of the options from last weekend’s Capricon:

Panels – these are a great way to join topics or activities about esoteric geeky (is that redundant?) topics, such as learning Circular Gallifreyan, discussing computers before computing, or even a coloring workshop for adults.
ConSuite – smaller conventions like to make sure people eat during the weekend, and provide assorted food options, along with space to socialize.
Gaming – an opportunity to meet people in a casual setting, where you can play a short game (Loonacy or Fluxx, for example) or settle in for something longer (like Terraforming Mars). You learn a lot about a person when you play a game or two with them. And you might find some new games you like.
Parties – the effort geeks put into party themes is fairly impressive. One party group was handing out surveys Thursday and Friday nights to prepare for a Saturday night ~~Family~~ Fandom Feud, with questions related to assorted fandoms. Whether you’re interested in drinking, dancing, trivia, books (& beer), or just talking, there’s a party for that.
Faramir, my cute shoulder cat, riding on my (surprise!) shoulder.

Dealers’ Hall – oh, the shopping! Blissfully smaller than the dealers’ areas at big conventions (you really need at least a day to get through GenCon’s), the dealers’ hall at local conventions tends to showcase a good variety of fandom wares without being overwhelming. That’s not to say there aren’t too many choices, there’s always more options than I have space or money to bring home. This time, I brought home a cute shoulder cat from the fabulous ladies at Bast’s Garden. And because I like crossing my fandoms, I named him Faramir. The vendors are friendly and outgoing, and you’re likely to join random conversations with people about what you see.

While the large conventions are good fun, the little ones – this was just over 1,100 people – are the place to go to see friends and generally appreciate your own geekiness.

Our kitten, Arwen

I mentioned at the end of November that we had adopted a kitten, who we named Arwen. She was a resident at the local animal shelter, and her online bio warned people that “did nip her previous owner, so she needs a new family who can handle a playful kitten.” Given that she’s a kitten, I couldn’t understand why somebody would be worried about nipping.

In fact, she’s barely nipped me in the couple months since she moved in. She’s clawed me repeatedly, mostly on my hands, but barely touched me with her teeth. She’s also attacked my feet in bed enough that I added a thick blanket down at my feet for protection. In other words, she’s a fairly typical kitten, at least in that respect.

She’s also a climber. She will dash across the living room to leap onto the climbing tower, or jump on the counter, only to be pushed down and jump on the opposite counter almost immediately. She seems to think the best route to the bedroom window is to cross under the bed, then over the person in bed, onto the nightstand, leaping onto the dresser and stepping onto the jewelry box.

She is immensely curious about our food. The older two cats aren’t that interested in what we eat unless it’s chicken, but Arwen investigates everything, and wants to lick every dish and every serving spoon… even if we’re not done with them. I’ve taken to washing the serving spoons immediately, and re-washing if we go back for more, rather than leaving them out on the counter for her… there’s only so many times I can get up to remove her while I’m eating. And really, some of that food is spicier than a cat should be licking.

More importantly, what her online bio didn’t say is that her purring can be heard across the room. She’ll curl up on an arm and just start purring, or more amusingly, purr while I’m serving her food as she runs laps around the food container, and as she starts to eat. Yeah, that offsets any nipping or clawing. Cuteness wins.

Crafting Confusion

Some days, I have trouble deciding what craft project to work on, and it’s largely because I have too many in progress at any time. At the moment, I can count three that are started, none of which have deadlines, and one more that has a deadline near the end of this month.

And yet, I’m having trouble deciding which one to work on next. That’s not even counting bits of the mending pile, like the large plush dog sitting on my couch because he has a minute seam tear.

“Crafting?,” you may say. ” That’s not on your list of goals.”

True enough, yet here I am, looking at my craft projects. I bought fabric last weekend to make a caftan. I thought I’d be buying blue fabric, but what jumped out at me was a brown fabric with embroidered patterns.

I have a crocheted Cthulhu barely started from before my accident; I had to take a break from crocheting after it for a bit because my shoulder was hurting. Instead of going back to it when I was ready to crochet again, I started a blanket. Ideally, I’ll finish that blanket before it gets too warm; it’s a fairly thick yarn, and I don’t want to be working with it during the summer.

I’m also working on a painting, which is really outside my realm of expertise; I’m far better at crocheting. But I’m enjoying painting as an artistic outlet, and have an idea for the one that will come after this one. I only have one spot where I store a painting in progress, so I do actually have to finish that one before starting the next.

Do websites count as craft projects? I have a couple of those that I need to work on too. Plus all my goals… it’s going to be a busy year.

It was a super blood blue moon!

Some mornings, I feel like I’m using a cattle prod to force a sloth into motion. “Get dressed! Come to breakfast! Finish eating!”

And then there are mornings like this Wednesday, when it was in an astronomy geek’s best interest to be up and moving. In this case, it was to see an eclipse, when we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the super blue blood moon.

I first heard of blue moons in elementary school… “once in a blue moon, a new smurf is born.” Yes, really, I remember that episode, though their blue moons seem to be a bit too close together. Not surprisingly, my actual understanding of a blue moon – the second full moon in a calendar month (since 1946) or the “extra” full moon in a year with 13 – came much later.

Super blue blood moon — The super blue moon before the eclipse started.

What made it stunning was the “super” part – the moon looked larger than normal because of it’s proximity to the Earth. Amusingly, I just saw the technical name for a supermoon (perigee syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system) as part of a trivia question earlier this week.

“Blood Moon” refers to the moon during a total lunar eclipse, so named because it can look red. I don’t think it look particularly red here. Unfortunately, it was also sinking in the horizon as the sun was rising, so most of my attempts to photograph the eclipse part are obscured by trees. It was awfully pretty, but not particularly photogenic, at least not on my point & click camera.